People,Places and Things

Thursday

Mar 31, 2011 at 12:34 AM

LAS VEGAS — Amy Adams has played fairy-tale royalty in “Enchanted” and co-stars with the Muppets this fall. Now she’s satisfying another girlhood fantasy: playing Lois Lane.

Adams was cast last weekend as the tough reporter in the next Warner Bros. incarnation of “Superman,” directed by Zack Snyder (”300”) and starring British actor Henry Cavill (”The Tudors”) in the title role. The studio aims to have the new “Superman” adventure in theaters late next year.

“She’s such a fantastic character,” Adams said Tuesday at CinemaCon, a Las Vegas convention for theater owners, where she appeared with co-star Jason Segel to promote their family comedy “The Muppets,” due out in November. “She’s feminine, she’s intelligent, she’s a go-getter. She’s somebody I have identified with since whenever.

“I’m like the luckiest girl in the world. I’ve gotten to be a princess, I’ve gotten to work with the Muppets. A lot of my childhood dreams about who I wanted to be when I was a grown-up, I at least get to play them in movies. And Lois Lane is one of them. So I’m just excited. I hope I bring something that people enjoy.”

NEW YORK — Kevin Kline likes roles that teach him something.

The Oscar winner brushed up on his French to play a French-speaking American in “Queen to Play,” an offbeat drama set for release Friday in the U.S. Kline also “upped” his chess game for the film, in which his character employs a Corsican cleaning woman who picks up the game.

Kline learned to play the piano for his role in the 2004 film “De-Lovely.”

The actor has another film, “The Conspirator,” due out April 15. He says the post-Civil War drama was educating, too: He learned a chapter of American history he didn’t know and discovered what it’s like to work with director Robert Redford.

Kline says he’s always searching for “different” kinds of roles to avoid boring him and his audience.

ALBANY, N.Y. — The seven New York state workers who pooled their resources and snagged the winning ticket in last week’s $319 million Mega Millions jackpot will finally reveal themselves.

The state lottery department says all seven will be at a presentation this morning at the department’s Schenectady headquarters.

The jackpot was the fifth-largest in the game’s history. The workers at the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal picked the lucky numbers and bought the ticket at a newsstand next door to their office in downtown Albany. Colleagues and others who know the winners say they frequently pooled their money to buy lottery tickets.

WASHINGTON — Think of your ideal Democratic candidate. Does that person have Harvard cum laude honors, charisma and name recognition? Add to that strong public speaking skills and down-home West Texas folksiness?

Well, there are some Texas Democrats who think that there is such a dream candidate — and they’re trying to talk him into running in the 2012 U.S. Senate race to replace retiring Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison.

The man of their dreams: Tommy Lee Jones.

Yes, the actor, Oscar winner and resident of San Saba, Texas.

“He’s just got a lot of class and I think it would be great for the relationship between the Democrats and Republicans in the state of Texas,” said Joseph Cochran, a 53-year-old West Texan who recently wrote a letter to the editor of the Abilene Reporter-News touting Tommy Lee for Senate.

The “Draft Tommy Lee” idea has taken off, even if most party regulars aren’t yet taking it seriously.

Geoff Berg, Houston-area attorney and host of the radio show “Partisan Gridlock,” is running a grass-roots effort to convince Jones to run for the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat. Already, a below-the-radar Facebook page recently had 2,059 fans.

It’s not as much a cry in the dark as some might think. Jones, 64, endorsed Bill Clinton, gave money to the Democratic Party and delivered the presidential nominating speech for his former roommate, Al Gore, at the 2000 Democratic National Convention. Supporters also point out he speaks fluent Spanish and has successfully managed a cattle ranch.